the-stanhope-inheritance

With this, my first book, I wanted to explore the following themes:
• Love and relationships
• Loss and grief
• Family dynamics
• Betrayal and forgiveness
• Courage and good v evil

By taking my main character Annabel from her unfulfilling, lower middle class upbringing and pitching her into an upper class world of money, I wanted to explore how someone brought up in a secure and loved environment would fare when taken out of her known world. Annabel is strong but vulnerable and she meets people with many differing hang ups, jealousies and fixed ideas about how their world should be. Her appearance disturbs their order. Of course, being a murder mystery, there is a murder or two, to further disrupt things.

Overarching this whole series is the loss and grief Annabel feels at the death of the father she never knew and would never have the opportunity to get to know. A man, she learns, who has led an interesting life and is well connected in the world of espionage and intelligence.

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London, 1965. Annabel Staple has inherited a country house - and a mystery.

When wealthy and elusive Alec Stanhope dies unexpectedly in his grand country house, the last person to expect to inherit his estate is Annabel Staple – the daughter who thought he had died in WWII.

Now named in his will, Annabel finds herself in a world of old money and quiet menace. She soon discovers this inheritance is far from straightforward. A missing fortune, forged cheques, stolen art – and then a murder – suggests her father’s death may not have been accidental after all.

With only a worn locket and a faded photograph of her mother as a clue, Annabel must navigate the secrets of a family she never knew she had. Alone in a country house full of hidden dangers, she is determined to uncover the truth before she becomes the next victim.

Perfect for fans of classic whodunnits and twisty tales of long-buried secrets, The Stanhope Inheritance is the first in the Annabel Staple Mystery series set in the swinging sixties.

Reader’s love An Annabel Staple Mystery series:

‘I really loved this book - raced through it but didn't want to finish it!!!’

‘The characters come across as real people which makes the story totally believable’

‘A beautifully paced thriller’

‘Delightfully engaging and gripping’

‘Quite the page turner’